


Computer Chess

by aralias



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Chess, Gen, Kid Fic, One of My Favorites
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-29
Updated: 2014-06-29
Packaged: 2018-02-06 18:49:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1868484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aralias/pseuds/aralias
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Orac finds something for Carnell to do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Computer Chess

**Author's Note:**

> He'll always be a Nik to me - thank you, Nova, for always writing him so beautifully. 
> 
> I don't know why I woke up one day and thought 'the world needs a Carnell kidfic' (I expect Carnell could probably tell me), but I did, and then I wrote it, and now here it is for your delight and delectation.

Exile had given Carnell a lot of time to think. It bored him. Naturally, he'd been bored as Space Command's lead psychostrategist, too, but at least the days had been enlivened by occasional visits to see Servalan. Obvious, of course, in a way, but very attractive.

He'd set himself up with a house and money fairly easily, and somewhere the Federation would never find him. Sometimes, when he was at his lowest ebb, he wondered whether this might have been a mistake. Perhaps he should have left a few clues as to his whereabouts. But he knew who would be sent after him: a blundering space commander, or a psychostrategist who was less talented than he was. He might be able to find a few hours or so of amusement dodging their pathetic ploys to capture him... but he also knew himself. Once he let them get a foot in the door, he'd probably be tempted to 'make the game interesting' by letting a few more things slip, fumbling a few more moves - and that could eventually end in his death if he played wrong. Some might have found those stakes exhilarating, but Carnell wasn't among them. He was bored, but not suicidally so.

Not _that_ suicidal anyway. One day, in desperation, he travelled to Freedom City with the intention of challenging the Klute. There was only a 2% chance that the Klute would triumph, making it reasonably safe, but Carnell thought the game might still prove to be more interesting than staring at a wall, which was his only other idea for the day. Unfortunately, a cursory sweep over the city's computer banks as he approached turned up irregularities in Krantor's records that suggested a cover-up. A small amount of further digging allowed Carnell to extrapolate roughly what he transpired at the Big Wheel. Ten million credits lost to a pair of thieves who'd stacked the deck. Reluctantly, Carnell concluded that the Klute would be demoralised after his forced 'draw' and that what had been a 2% chance was now a mere 0.5%. Those odds were not worth playing, so Carnell turned his ship around.

But the encounter had given him an idea.

Carnell already had extensive and relatively recent information about Roj Blake and his crew, and this was now supplemented by even more recent information from Krantor's computers. He knew Blake was looking for the central-control computer (having discovered it was not on Earth, as was generally believed) and Krantor's security cameras told Carnell that the Liberator was now headed for Goth, where Blake would find the location of Star One in a brain-print. Psychostrategy could only deduce so much, and Carnell knew it would be beyond even _his_ resources to deduce the location of the Federation's top-secret computer complex without actually travelling to Goth himself. If Blake went straight there, he would be able to collect the information and fly off to who knew where long before Carnell could reach him...

But Carnell knew Blake's crew, and he rather thought they _wouldn't_ fly straight off. Avon and Restal would want to spend their winnings, and the Auron (Cally) would push for a rest stop, citing that the crew were exhausted and that their ship was several hundred times faster than Travis's. Blake would chomp at the bit, but he was still suffering from a crisis of leadership following Olag Gan's death. He would give in... this once... and allow the crew to spend three days on (Carnell studied his charts) Astrolon Beta...

Where Carnell intercepted them, got himself tangled up (on purpose) in some local trouble that came to head in a bank where Kerr Avon was attempting to clandestinely deposit several million credits. It was a simple matter to resolve the dispute (publically, where Roj Blake could see) and then get himself injured seriously enough that he had to be transported up to the Liberator to be healed using their technology.

*

Thirty minutes later:

"Really, it was nothing," Carnell said warmly as Cally fussed around him, and Jenna Stannis and Roj Blake tried to look like they weren’t trying to do the same thing. Cally was doing her job; Jenna and Blake both liked long eyelashes and heroics.

"Nobody said otherwise,” Avon said snidely from a corner. He was feeling guilty for accidentally endangering Carnell and the rest of Blake's crew, and jealous of attention that wasn’t being paid to him. Carnell very carefully did not smile at him and further attract his wrath, although his instinct was to be amused at the man's childish behaviour.

A few more well-timed questions and pieces of information about his life, a wobbly trip down the flight deck supported by Cally’s arm, and Carnell exclaimed over the plastic box sitting in front of the sofa-ring. “So that is Orac. Somehow I’d imagined  he'd be slightly smaller.”

“You’ve heard of it?” Avon asked, (correctly) suspicious.

“My dear man,” Carnell said, “you must know that everyone who’s even slightly associated with Federation security” (he’d told them that much) “has heard of Orac. I wonder - might I be permitted to ask him a question? In public, of course - and both you and he would have the opportunity to refuse, if you think my request inappropriate.”

Avon didn’t like it, Restal didn’t like it either (criminals recognising another conman, no doubt), but Blake didn’t see the harm in anyone _asking a question,_ and was (though he didn’t say so) charmed by Carnell’s use of a gendered pronoun for his computer and his insistence on Orac’s rights. He overruled Avon, as Carnell had known he would, removing the key from Avon’s fingers, mid-protest, and slotting it into place.

“If there’s anything wrong, I’m _sure_ Orac will tell us.”

That sort of autocratic behaviour would probably get him into trouble soon. Carnell could extrapolate Avon's frustration and sense of injustice out into the next month. There would be more fights, more ultimatums. The number of unknown variables surrounding Star One made it difficult to predict what would happen after that, but it seemed very likely that the next time Avon threatened to leave he would mean it, even if he would regret the decision as soon as he left.

Carnell considered passing this information onto Blake, but he knew Blake already feared something of the sort would happen, and was still _determined_ to continue to have his own way. His reasons were undoubtedly noble, but the behaviour was ridiculously self-destructive. Still, there was little anyone could do about it, given that Blake knew _that_ , too.

“Hello, Orac,” Carnell said as Blake stepped back and the computer's lights flashed. He rested his hands against the plastic case. “My name is-”

“Nik Carnell,” the computer said in the voice of a fussy, elderly man. “Yes, I know.”

“Then… you’ve heard of me?” Carnell asked, rather pleased that his reputation had preceded him.

“Of course I have,” Orac said. “As you are undoubtedly aware, there are few facts that I do not know, and few actions that I cannot predict.”

“For a computer who hates being bothered, Orac’s never too busy to tell us how wonderful he is,” Restal said. He nodded towards Avon. “That’s another thing you have in common.”

“If you keep complimenting me, Vila, I’ll have to assume you’re after something,” Avon retorted.

“In this case,” Orac said, “I predict that you will be unsatisfied with the result of your request, Nik Carnell.”

“Really?” Carnell said, genuinely interested for the first time in months. The fact that he was standing on Blake’s flight deck and surrounded by rebels, that he was basically pretending to be someone else, faded away as unimportant background details. “In what way? Do you think you’ll lose?”

“Of course I wouldn’t lose!” Orac protested, sounding as though it was spluttering in indignation. “However, the rules of chess are constrictive - only a certain, finite number of moves may be extrapolated from each previous move. It is therefore possible for an exceptional human mind to successfully predict an opponent’s moves as accurately as a computer. The Klute was one such mind, you are another. I predict that we would drive each other to stalemate. No other outcome is possible.”

“How tedious,” Carnell said, feeling his heart drop. Well, it had been a foolish hope. It was also dispiriting to find he had underestimated the Klute - clearly Orac considered him a worthy opponent.

“Well, thank you anyway, for entertaining my silly request.” He reached for the key, about to pull it out and cut Orac off.

“There is,” Orac said sharply, “only _one_ person in the universe to whom you might feasibly _lose_ the game of chess…”

Carnell's eyes widened. “How feasible?”

Orac’s lights flickered. “Judging by your personality type...” Carnell almost fidgeted as it computed, “forty per cent.”

“Forty per cent,” Carnell repeated to himself. “That’s almost probable. Give me details, Orac.” He remembered Blake just in time. “Please. If it wouldn’t be too much trouble. I could find out for myself, of course, but-”

“His name,” Orac said, “is Karl Mongray. He is eight years old. You will find him on the planet Epfellion Minor in six days, if you return to your ship immediately and leave as soon as is reasonably possible.”

“ _That’s_ really the question you wanted to ask?” Jenna Stannis said as a smile spread across Carnell's face. She thought him trivial now, certainly in comparison to Blake. She was very probably right.

"You just wanted to know who could beat you at chess?" Restal echoed.

“It’s the only question I don’t already know the answer to,” Carnell said apologetically.

*

As Orac had predicted, it took Carnell just under six days to reach the Epfellion system. His flight computer had suggested a mere four days, but when Carnell had hit extensive customs checkpoints and other delays as he tried to land (delays that cost him almost two days of search-time), he was pleased - and happy to admire another master of the craft.

He'd been in neutral space even since Freedom City, meaning he was outside of the Federation's influence, meaning there were slightly more unknown variables to content with, but as long as he didn't want to _precisely_ predict the outcome of an event this was unlikely to present a problem. People were ultimately people, and Carnell knew people.

Census records indicated that Karl Mongray would be found in the capital city of the chief continent of Epfellion Minor. That still left a substantial area to search, but (since he had Orac's prediction of six days) Carnell was not surprised to pick up a promising trail after only two hours of enquiries.

The boy was being held in a state hospital after a recent traffic accident. Karl Mongray had apparently been crossing the road at speed when the hover-car hit him. He'd fractured his skull, and the fingers of his left hand had been crushed. Fortunately the gemstone necklace he'd been attempting to escape with had survived the crash relatively unharmed and had been returned to its rightful owner.  _Un_ fortunately for Karl, that owner was now planning to prosecute (which in this case probably meant execute - the laws being more barbaric, in a way, than the Federation's), if he could be returned to consciousness for long enough to stand trial. This would have been in a matter of hours if someone were willing to pay for his treatment, but it seemed nobody was. The pleasure of seeing justice done was not apparently great enough to be worth substantial medical bills... at least not to those who had almost lost their jewellery. 

"Cure him," Carnell said lazily, handing over his credit details to the on-call doctor. "Then I want him released to my custody - I'll take care of the other interested parties."

The doctor didn't care about justice either. Without access to detailed records, Carnell couldn't predict his exact actions or thought-process, but he assumed (judging by the man's expression) that he was thinking about the new MRI machine (or whatever it was) that the hospital could afford to buy, and how this was infinitely preferable to having to remove the corpse of a young thief.

It took slightly more work to persuade the other 'interested parties' not to make a scene, but not _much_ more. A quick enquiry about the charges laid against his target (Karl Mongray) revealed a string of earlier charges against other ex-citizens of Epfellion, made by the same people who were prosecuting Karl. Fortunately, there was also an easily identifiable pattern to the arrests: wealth, or rather a lack of it. Carnell noted this, and set out for their private residence, which was of course large and well-appointed.

Once shown inside, he noticed that the necklace-owners had a small boy of their own, who was well loved, if the numerous portraits and stacks of children's toys could be relied on to tell an accurate story. Carnell added two and two together and arrived at a strategy. He claimed Karl was his son - a silly young scamp who enjoyed pretending to be a commoner. Karl would, Carnell assured his audience, be _thoroughly_ reprimanded once he was taken home.

The knowledge (false, but then you could never trust anyone, could you?) that the boy wasn't from the lower class, but rather from their own, seemed to take all the fun out of the justice system for the formerly outraged couple. They agreed no real harm had been done, as indeed it hadn't, and Carnell returned to the hospital where Karl was waking up.

He'd chosen a simple chess board for the match: wooden pieces, wooden board. No sense in making things more complicated than they had to be - that was how one made mistakes.

Carnell steepled his fingers together, and watched as the boy's eyelashes flickered. The small head turned to the side, and the boy's brown eyes stared right at him. Carnell smiled in what he believed was a disarming fashion. The boy's eyes remained just as wide as before.

"Am I under arrest?" He had a light, fluting voice - clearly still several years from breaking. It wobbled slightly with fear.

"No," Carnell said reassuri- that is, in what he hoped to be a reassuring tone of voice. "All the charges have been dropped."

"...Oh," the boy said in surprise. Then, strangely, he looked even more afraid. "Am I going to an orphanage?"

So, he was an orphan. That was useful information. Carnell filed it away into the sadly empty area of his brain designated for facts about Karl Mongray. It was... upsetting that he hadn't been able to do proper research before setting out, but Orac's instructions had been clear - six days. "Do you _want_ to go to an orphanage?"

"No. They sleep six to a bed and only eat frogs there."

"I find that unlikely."

"It's true. Tommy's sister's friend is in there."

Carnell grimaced. Hearsay: one of the great obfuscating enemies of his trade.

"Where would they get enough frogs to feed an entire and, as we hear, overstocked orphanage with?" he said slowly. "Epfellion is not a marine world; it does not seem to be overrun with frogs. Those at the orphanage probably eat protein-concentrate, like everyone else on this planet, except the very rich."

"Are you very rich?"

"Yes," Carnell said. "In a manner of speaking."

"You look rich," the boy observed.

"Appearances can be deceiving, but in this case they are not."

"Who are you? You're not a doctor." And, at last, he’d asked one of the two important questions of the meeting. It was slightly galling to be less interesting than incarceration or an invasion of fictional frogs, but Carnell reminded himself he was dealing with a child as a well as a prodigy.

"My name is Nik Carnell. I was- that is, I _am_ a psychostrategist, though currently on a recreational basis."

"Oh," the boy said, which Carnell deduced (he was beginning to get a read on the child now) meant that he hadn't understood most of the words in the previous sentence. He considered explaining, but he wasn't vain enough to be worried than an eight-year-old hadn't heard of his profession. Particularly not when the next question was almost certainly-

"What do you want?"

Carnell nodded towards the chess board, set out on the bedside table: white facing towards the boy (it made sense to give him every advantage possible).

"You can have it," the boy said. "I don't want it. I don't even know what it is."

Carnell gave a tinkling laugh. "Of course you do."

"I tell you, I've never seen it before. Someone must have planted it."

" _I_ planted it," Carnell told him, more sharply than he would have liked. "That is," he said more reasonably, " _I_ put it there. I don’t believe I conceived of the action as ‘planting’ when I enacted it."

"Oh," the boy said again - this time in what seemed to be confusion. It seemed genuine, but that didn't fit with the information Carnell had from Orac. It didn't make sense. It couldn't be genuine.

"It’s really no use pretending you don't know what it is. I understand you may be the most gifted player to have ever lived."

"Player-" the boy said. "Play- You mean, it's a game?"

" _Of course it's a game_ ," Carnell snapped. That, in itself, was quite exciting. He hadn't been wrong-footed enough to get angry for years.

"I'm sorry," the boy said, looking close to tears. "But I really don't know how to play it."

"No, you don't, do you?" Carnell said.

He was calm again now. He'd simply misinterpreted data. He trusted his own observations and they told him the child was telling the truth. Orac was either wrong (unlikely) or, as Carnell now believed, had failed to provide time scales for the most important part of his prediction. Karl _would_ be able to beat him at some point, but that point was, apparently, still in the future. Orac had only promised Carnell that he would _find_ the boy in six days.

Carnell had failed to take this possibility into account, as no good psychostrategist would have dreamed of being so imprecise. Vagueness always suggested that one was not sure, and you were only ever 'not sure' if you hadn't done the necessary research (in which case you should be fired) or if you were an out-and-out fraud (in which case you should never have been hired in the first place). Orac talked like a psychostrategist and, to some extents, _thought_ like a pyschostragist, but the computer wasn’t part of the Order and it had been a mistake to treat it as though it was.

It occurred to Carnell that Orac had probably already known he was suffering under this misapprehension at the time of its prediction, but hadn't mentioned it. Being out-thought was a new and interesting experience. Galling, but interesting.

"Would you like to learn how to play?" Carnell asked the frightened boy in the bed. "No," he said, holding up a hand. "That's the wrong question. Forgive me - I'm not at my best today. The question I would actually like to ask you is - why do you steal?"

"I don't! That's a lie. I've never stolen anything. They planted that-"

"I have already told you that I am not a doctor," Carnell said calmly, stopping the tide of terrified denials. "I am also not a trooper, or any other sort of law-enforcement officer. I’m not even from this planet. So, you can tell me the truth, can't you? Is it because you like stealing, or because you need the money?"

"Why would anyone like it?" the boy blurted out. “It’s scary, I hate it, and if you get caught they _kill_ you.” Then he realised what he'd said and seemed to shrink back into the bed.

"There is a certain pleasure to be had in any activity that involves outwitting a well-designed system,” Carnell said thoughtfully. “Although I agree that the pleasures of execution are quite limited. On this point you may rest assured - your crimes are forgiven, and if you never steal again then you need never fear execution again.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” the boy retorted. “You’re rich. You said so. You probably have rooms and rooms of food, but I don’t. I don’t have anything. I _need_ to steal. I have to.”

 _“Or?”_ Carnell prompted.

The boy looked at him in bemusement. “Or?” he repeated.

“Find an alternative,” Carnell told him. He smiled. “I believe I may be able to provide that alternative.”

*

Karl didn’t have a family as such. He lived in a gang of other boys and girls, ruled over by a rather disreputable character who seemed likely to come to a bad end within the year. Karl would certainly have _liked_ to have seen some of his friends one last time, including (no doubt) the knowledgeable Tommy, but he was also smart enough to realise that, if he did go back, then the disreputable character might try to make him stay, or try and extract some money from Carnell. As a result, they left Epfellion without saying goodbye to anyone.

Carnell had considered shipping Karl off to a boarding school or a Grand Master to learn what he needed to become a worthy opponent, but he’d soon realised this wasn’t going to work. Karl needed to not only learn chess, he also needed to learn how to beat Carnell himself, something that no other living person could do. He needed to be taught by the best, and he needed to be taught by someone who understood the way Carnell’s mind worked and how to thwart it. That meant Carnell would have to teach him.

It wasn’t what he had expected to happen when he’d gone looking for Karl, but Carnell was actually not too upset by the turn events had taken. After all, it was, in some respects, already his life’s work. To take an individual and mould them to a desired shape - that was what pyschostrategy was. He’d simply never done it in quite such a hands-on way before. Generally, he received briefings, suggested strategies based on patterns, before waiting for more information to come in so that he could adapt the strategy. Now, he observed, gathered information first hand, tested strategies himself, adapting instantly to an unforeseen circumstance.

It surprised him how often he got it wrong and had to change his methods. Small, trivial things that he’d never had to worry about before, of course, but still - he _should_ have been able to adapt faster. He should have been able to work out how to manipulate a _child_. And yet... a learning strategy he’d thought interesting would see Karl staring out of the window of Carnell’s house. A failed attempt at discipline through lecture had been laughed at once Karl was comfortable enough to not react to everything with instant obedience. It was bemusing.

The boy himself didn’t seem to be anything particularly unusual. He was bright, but not excessively bright. He was interested in most of the things Carnell tried to teach him - history, politics, mathematics, art, languages, natural sciences. He was pleasant, civil… to a point. Within a year, he was good at chess, if not yet brilliant. He was a normal boy. People were people - Carnell understood people perfectly. People you knew a lot about (and Carnell knew a lot about Karl now) were people you could manipulate very easily. Or at least - that’s how it had always been.

“I don’t suppose you have any ideas?” he asked Karl one day over dinner.

Karl wasn’t eating very much because he’d spent a whole week’s pocket-money on sweets that morning, eaten them, and was now feeling ill. Carnell had known this would happen and had attempted to counter this by providing a roast dinner (Karl’s favourite), but he’d clearly underestimated the number of sweets one could buy for twenty credits these days. Thus far, Karl had eaten one roast potato and was now swinging his feet, eager to escape.

“Perhaps it’s because I’m a kid-” he offered, using the street-slang Carnell was trying to train him out of.

“Child,” Carnell corrected.

“Perhaps it's because I'm a _child_ ," Karl repeated, "and my behaviours have,” he slowed down here as the concepts got more difficult, “yet to... solidify into the socially accepted norms that you base most of your predictions on.”

“ _Most_ of my predictions are based on painstakingly gathered research,” Carnell said. “ _Some_ are based on social norms.”

“Can I leave the table yet?”

“Not until you’ve eaten at least three more potatoes or produced a more credible theory,” Carnell said. “I will accept either, although I suspect a responsible guardian would insist on both.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“And I spent a three-year period arranging the events that would ensure the next generation of Space Commanders were fit for duty as early as possible. They were all children, younger than you are now, when I began work on them. Now, I believe they have all reached the rank of captain, with the exception of three who have become majors at the unprecedented age of twenty-two. So you see, your theory is not only a slander against my work ethic, but also poorly informed. Incidentally, breaking your potatoes into smaller pieces will _not_ convince me that they have been eaten, so you might as well stop it, unless it helps you think.”

Karl stuck his tongue out, and then (when Carnell failed to react to this) grudgingly put a piece of potato in his mouth and chewed.

“Better,” Carnell told him. “Dare I hope that you theory has similarly improved?”

“Maybe it’s not me, it’s you,” Karl said. “Have you thought of that?”

“Interesting,” Carnell said. “Explain.”

“That was the last time you worked with children, wasn’t it?” Karl said. “You would have said if it wasn’t. You like to talk. And it must be _ages_ ago, because you said those majors are twenty-two now.”

“Are you saying I’ve lost my touch?” Carnell asked.

“I’m saying you’re really _old_ ,” Karl said with a grin.

“I’m _thirty seven,”_ Carnell protested. “In the very _prime_ of my life. You used to be quiet and withdrawn - where did you learn to be so cheeky?"

“I learned everything from you, Nik,” Karl said. “And you know what else you taught me? To check facts. You’re thirty nine - it’s on your birth certificate _and_ your passport. That means you’re forty this year. Forty is _old_.”

“Leave the table immediately,” Carnell told him.

“Thanks!” Karl said cheerfully. He slipped off his chair.

“But be back here at eight for chess practice,” Carnell shouted after him, and had the pleasure of hearing Karl groan.

Chess practice was not well-liked, because while Karl was improving steadily he was still not nearly as good as his teacher, and had yet to force a draw. It was also the subject Carnell was most invested in, and therefore the lesson in which he had the least patience for mistakes. In early sessions, Karl had been driven to tears by harsh words about (for example) the foolish movement of his knight.

Perhaps (Carnell thought as he cleared the table and scraped Karl’s un-eaten food into the compost) Karl was correct without realising it. The problem wasn’t with Karl, but with his teacher. He, Carnell, was personally involved, and while he could easily predict other people’s actions in a sterile environment, he kept tripping up now he was himself a factor in the equation.

Maybe he _should_ send Karl away after all. That would almost certainly make his actions easier to predict. But Carnell was also convinced his first conclusion (that Karl needed to be trained by the best i.e himself) had been accurate. What was the point of predicting Karl’s actions more accurately, if all he could do was predict continual failures?

Besides, Carnell knew himself enough to know he would probably miss Karl if he went away. Even though the brat was becoming irritatingly cocky.

*

They reached a crisis point approximately three months later.

Karl spent a week refusing to play chess at all because he hated it, he was no good at it, it was a stupid game. Eventually Carnell successfully lured him back with promises of a new hover-bike and an improved teaching strategy, but while he could _definitely_ provide the bike, he had no real idea what to do about the chess. He let Karl play against the computer for a few weeks in the hope that it would build his confidence (levels five and six were still beyond him, but he’d learnt enough that he could generally beat all the earlier levels within an hour) but instead it just seemed to bore him.

“I do understand,” Carnell said in his soothing voice, although inside he was panicking. “For me, chess is all about reading the reactions of my opponent. It is tedious when the computer gives nothing back. Why don’t we play again?”

“There’s no point,” Karl said sulkily.

“Nonsense. Your skills will improve and I will be minorly entertained.”

“I’ll just lose again,” Karl said, sinking lower in his chair. “Can’t we play snakes and ladders instead?”

“No,” Carnell said. “You know you don’t like snakes and ladders any more than I do. If you insist on playing a different game, I will tolerate a single game of Scrabble, but then we must return to chess. One day, we will play and you will win.”

“When?” Karl demanded.

“I don’t know,” Carnell said. “It wasn’t my prediction. So we must be patient.”

“That’s easy for you to say. You don’t have to lose this stupid game over and over again every night. I’ll never be as good as you, I know I won’t-”

“Orac said you would be, so you will be.”

“Oh, _Orac_ said,” Karl said viciously. “Orac said so it _must_ be true. Orac _said_.” He picked up a white pawn and slammed it down two spaces closer to Carnell. “Let’s play then.”

 _I am the demoralising factor,_ Carnell realised as he moved his own pawn. _He needs to beat me soon or he will never have the confidence or motivation to continue learning. If he doesn’t learn any more, he will never beat me. Therefore, I will have to lose on purpose-_

 _I will have to lose… but not because Karl has_ actually _beaten me._

His slammed his fist down on the board, displacing the chess men. _“That’s it._ I can’t believe _that_ is it. That’s _all_ it is. _”_

“Nik?” Karl said tentatively.

“That’s all it is!” Carnell said again as the bile rose in his throat. He stood up. “A year and a half wasted on _semantics_!”

“Nik, are you all right?” Karl said and then he yelped as Carnell seized his wrist. “Hey!”

“No, I’m not all right,” Carnell said furiously. “I’m very obviously not all right. Anyone with even a rudimentary intelligence would be able to see that, and you certainly have above average intelligence, if not quite as high an IQ as we might have thought ten minutes ago!”

“I’m sorry,” Karl said. “Whatever it is, Nik, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I’ll try harder-”

With difficulty, Carnell reined his anger back in. The boy was trembling - undoubtedly thinking of the other adults from his early life who had largely represented fear and violence.

“It’s not your fault,” Carnell said. He kept his voice calm and steady, and slowly let go of Karl’s wrist. “It’s not your fault at all. It’s my fault, and it is Orac’s fault. Now, pack some things. We’re going.”

Karl’s eyes were very wide. He looked as though he was about to cry. “Are you sending me away?” he said in a small voice.

Carnell felt like a heel. “Not at the moment,” he said gently. “Although I might reconsider if you tell anyone else how old I am.” This raised a small smile from the boy, and Carnell squeezed his shoulder. “We’re just going to tell Orac about the psychostrategist’s code,” his voice hardened, “and what happens to those who abuse it.”

*

He was angry enough and confident enough in his abilities that they boarded the ship and set it in flight before Carnell had a clear idea of where they were going. He set the autopilot on a course for Earth (chosen at random, but it wasn’t unlikely that Blake was back there after a year and a half), left Karl with a pile of maths problems, and rang the headquarters of the Order of Psychostrategists. Eventually, after being passed through several sets of secretaries and under-secretaries (a system designed to put off the casual caller), he reached the office of Rolland Burton.

Burton had been in Carnell’s graduating class, and considered himself Carnell’s friend because neither of them had ever tried to arrange the murder of the other. As a piece of logic, it wasn’t unsound, although undoubtedly Burton knew that Carnell found his voice to be like nails on a blackboard, and Carnell certainly knew that Burton thought he was a ‘pretentious twat’.

“Nik Carnell!” Burton exclaimed as Carnell’s face appeared on his monitor. “Well, this is a surprise. We lost track of you six months after the IMIPAK business. How’s banishment treating you?”

“Well, I really can’t complain,” Carnell said, “after all, nobody would listen, making it rather pointless. Now, Burton, obviously I’d love to chat-”

“No, you wouldn’t,” Burton said.

“So, let’s just bypass all the small talk,” Carnell agreed. “Investigate me later. Right now, I need you to send me everything you have about the recent movements of Roj Blake.”

“No can do, sorry, Nikky,” Burton said and Carnell winced slightly. “You know I’d love to help you out, but rules are rules -”

“Don’t be absurd. I was banished from Federation, not the Order-”

“It’s not that. I’m working on the Blake case myself. For a _very_ high-value client. And let me tell you - they would _not_ be happy if they knew that I was giving out the information I had to the other interested parties. It’s not just the rules - it doesn’t make sense to bring you into this. You’ll only make my job more difficult. So I’m not going to help you, but you might as well tell me: who are you working for? Kerr Avon?”

“I’m not working for anyone,” Carnell said.

“No, but really-”

“Burton - the puppets are back in their boxes, the puppeteer has gone fishing,” Carnell said firmly. This was the Order’s way of making it clear they were talking not as psychostrategists, but as people. “I am not working for _anyone_.”

Burton whistled. “And you want Blake? What did he ever do to you? We didn’t even know you’d met him. It’s not about the banishment, is it?”

“It’s not Blake I want to speak to, it’s his computer.”

“If it’s Zen, you’re out of luck,” Burton said. “Copped it six months ago. If it’s Orac, you’ll need Kerr Avon’s file as well. He and Blake split about a year ago.”

“Well, at least I saw _that_ coming.”

“I think we all did,” Burton said. “Avon got Orac and the ship; Blake seems to have got Stannis, although we can’t be sure. She wasn’t on the Liberator when it blew, and she’s not with Avon now. Hang on, I’ll beam the files over to you- And hey, if you work out where any of them are, let me know, will you? For old time’s sake?”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Carnell said dryly and rang off.

*

He was still reading Avon’s file and making notes on it when eight o’clock rolled 'round. That was the time traditionally reserved for chess practice, and Karl (chastened by the outburst of the previous night) had set up the board, moved a single pawn, and then sat waiting for almost fifteen minutes before Carnell realised what was happening.

He moved a black pawn out to meet the white one, and underlined a passage about Avon’s recent meeting with his ex-lover Anna Grant. Burton’s high-value client must obviously be Servalan herself (despite rumours of her death), since the files were full of highly detailed information about the events that had taken place in the presidential cellar. That made sense - and it pleased Carnell that, even after his failure to retrieve IMIPAK, she was still relying on the Order. Her recall had always been very good, as had her wine. Carnell smiled with something resembling fondness.

Another gentle knock of wood against wood alerted him that Karl had made his second move. Carnell glanced at the board, and moved another pawn before returning to the notes. He was still largely concentrating on the briefing, but nine moves into the game he realised that this was the perfect opportunity to put his other strategy into play. He was obviously distracted, obviously not at his best. If ever there was a plausible moment for him lose to Karl, this was it.

He won the first game anyway, just so that it wasn’t too obvious. They usually played two or three games each evening, and he would find it easier to plausibly lose if he began from the beginning. Bishop’s Opening from Karl, countered by Carnell’s knight. Carnell stared through Avon’s notes as Karl brought out a knight of his own.

If only (Carnell lamented as he took Karl’s pawn) he’d realised what was going on a few months earlier. It was relatively easy to work out where Avon’s base was - or rather _had_ been, but all indications pointed towards Avon realising that his security had been compromised and abandoning the base after Servalan’s rather clumsy attempt to get to him through Zukan. That meant that the ship carrying Orac could be literally anywhere now, although…

No, that wasn’t true. Carnell flipped back through his memory to his own impressions of Avon, gathered over a year ago but first-hand. Without anywhere to call home, Avon would be searching for stability again, for someone to give him hope again after a string of increasingly embarrassing defeats. That _meant_ (another knight from Karl, suggesting the rather unsound Boden–Kieseritzky Gambit - not something Carnell would have played himself, but usefully offering several alternatives for his own next move. He moved another pawn forward) Avon would be searching for _Blake_. Avon would bring Orac to Blake.

Carnell pulled Blake’s file back onto the table again, open on top of Avon’s. Clearly, all he needed to do was work out where the Federation’s most-wanted criminal was hiding. That shouldn’t be too difficult. The Federation had actually done a good job of gathering data on this point, although a typically poor job of analysing what it meant. They had sixteen agents out in the field who believed they were closing in on Blake. Perhaps all of them were wrong, but something told Carnell that it would be unwise to assume this.

Burton had compiled all their reports, and had helpfully dismissed four already on grounds that Carnell believed were reasonable. All the others seemed legitimate avenues of investigation, but did they represent feasible final destinations for Blake, and for Jenna Stannis, starting out at Star One? That was the question that had not _quite_ been asked. What would Blake be doing on, for example, a pleasure planet like Rigel Seven? Lying low didn’t exactly fit his profile. There were those who believed (Burton amongst them) that Blake might be dispirited after seeing the devastation left by the destruction of Star One. Carnell meanwhile _acknowledged_ that Blake was prone to self pity, but he rather thought that if Blake had Stannis with him (and this seemed likely) he would probably rally relatively quickly. He was up to something, but whatever it was it was a slow-moving something, because there had been no obvious signs of his presence anywhere in the galaxy. That was, of course, why they were finding it so difficult to track him down.

Carnell left Karl studying the chess-board and returned to the the cabin where he called Burton and asked for Stannis’s record to be sent through as well. Ten minutes later he had eliminated another six possible locations and was closing in on Blake. He let Karl take his knight and his queen in quick succession, eliminated another four locations. Two left - Gauda Prime and Scotious Minor. Both plausible.

“Which do you think?” Carnell asked, holding the two files up to Karl.

“I think you should concentrate,” Karl said.

“I _am_ ,” Carnell insisted.

 _“On the game!”_ Karl said. “You’re in check.”

“With no wish to seem unnecessarily offensive, I hardly think my full attention is required,” Carnell said. He moved a bishop with the edge of the Scotious file, blocking the threat offered by Karl’s queen, and held both files up again. “Please - indulge me. Random chance can often be surprisingly revealing in these matters.”

“Fine. That one,” Karl said, pointing at the Gauda Prime file. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Interesting. Why this one?” Carnell asked, studying the Gauda Prime file more closely.

“You said choose randomly,” Karl said, “but you were holding that one out in front of the other one. Subconsciously, you think that’s the right choice.”

“ _Do_ I?”

“Yes. And you’re in check again.”

“Gauda Prime _does_ make sense,” Carnell mused. “No Federation presence, in fact a distinctly anti-Federation sentiment; within range of the sort of spacecraft Stannis might have been able to procure on Jevron; and it’s not too far away from the centre of the galaxy, so if he decides to move he can do so quickly - that’s what I don’t like about Scotious, although the sightings there _do_ seem more plausible than-”

“Checkmate,” Karl said.

“Don’t be silly,” Carnell told him. “You’re not due to be checkmated for another- oh, I see,” he looked down at the board, “ _I’m_ the one in checkmate, am I?”

“Yes,” Karl said, a grin spreading across his face.

“How astonishing,” Carnell said, though of course he had orchestrated the entire thing. He put down the two files, and held out a hand across the board. “Congratulations.” Karl shook his hand solemnly. “I was distracted, of course,” Carnell told him.

“Oh yes.”

“I was!”

“You’re losing your touch!” the boy crowed.

“Oh no, rather the contrary, I think,” Carnell said. “With your help, I have done that which none of my over-educated peers have achieved in months of deliberation. I have deduced, through research, brilliance and subconscious instinct, that Roj Blake is on Gauda Prime. If we change course now, we should even be there before Avon.”

“Are you going to do that then?”

“Naturally,” Carnell said. “You’ve become so impatient, Karl. Even with his stardrive, Avon has a much greater distance to travel than we do, and we can certainly afford five minutes of gloating.”

Karl stared at him, and Carnell shrugged expansively. “All right! I’ll change course. You can set the board up again - you can even play black this time, if you like.”

*

“This is an awful planet,” Karl said for the fourth time as they picked their way through the Gauda Prime forest.

“I still agree with you,” Carnell said. “So you might as well keep that thought to yourself next time it occurs to you, because I doubt my position will change and frankly I find this exchange rather tiring.”

“Much like walking two hours through a forest, then,” Karl said.

“Don’t be a smart alec,” Carnell said.

There was the sound of gunfire somewhere off in the direction that they’d hidden Carnell’s ship - probably well enough that it wouldn’t be found, but there was no knowing how enterprising the bounty hunters might be. Karl caught his eye, and Carnell tried to look as though he wasn’t worried. Karl edged closer to him.

“How much longer until Blake gets here?” Karl asked.

“My information is that he patrols this sector about this time every morning,” Carnell said, pressing on through the forest. “Other than that, I couldn’t say, so we shall just have to keep walking until we find him, won’t we?”

“You’ve found him,” a deep, rumbling voice said from behind Carnell’s back. “Now, tell me why you were looking for me, or I’ll blow the child's brains out.”

“Nik,” Karl said in a small voice.

Carnell turned, and saw exactly what he’d expected - Roj Blake looking even worse than the reports had indicated, dirty and scarred and apparently ruthless; Karl, white and still, Blake’s hand clamped over his shoulder and the barrel of a gun pressed into his hair. Carnell had expected it, it was the logical thing for Blake to do in this situation, but the scene as presented was almost paralysing.

“Put the gun down,” Carnell ordered, his voice trembling.

“I’ve already named my terms,” Blake said.

“Nik-”

“It’s all right, Karl. I’m handling this-” At least, he should have been, but he wasn’t, somehow he wasn’t. “It’s a very long story-”

“Speak quickly then,” Blake suggested. He frowned. “We’ve met before, haven’t we?”

“One year, four months, three days ago,” Carnell said, following Blake’s advice and hearing his normally languid voice sharp with panic. “You let me speak to your computer, it set me up, I just want to ask _why-_ That’s all. Now, please _put the gun down.”_

“Orac is a part of my life that I left behind long ago,” Blake said. “Along with the patience to listen to someone who’s lying to me.”

“I’m not lying,” Carnell said, his words tripping over themselves as Blake pressed the gun harder into Karl’s head. “Avon will bring you that computer within the next two hours. If you say something sensible to him when he arrives, he won’t shoot you, and we can all evacuate this planet before the Federation arrive.”

“I beg your pardon?” Blake said.

“I’m a psychostrategist,” Carnell explained. “I’ve read your files - I worked on the IMIPAK case, and read you perfectly at every stage. I know this is all an act - I know it’s part of your ridiculous recruitment drive, that you’re trying to test my loyalty because you were betrayed on Jevron, Horst Minor, and Mun. Jenna Stannis tried to warn you to be less trusting, but you didn’t listen until Mun, where she lost the use of her legs, something that you feel responsible for, particularly since her death, which you _also_ blame yourself for. I know you would never even consider so much as hurting a child, despite the charges laid against you on Earth. You’re a good man, I know you are, _objectively_ I know you are, but I can’t think _rationally_ while you’re holding my son hostage.”

Without a word, Blake let Karl go, and the clamp that had been tightening around Carnell’s chest seemed to relax and open, allowing him to breathe again. Karl ran to him and collided with his chest, knocking all that air out again, but it would be all right. He could get it back. Carnell wrapped his arms around Karl, and breathed in the smell of mud, sweat and the chocolate that had been hidden down the back of the flight seat.

“When will Avon get here?” Blake asked, the business-like tenor of his voice completely different from his bounty-hunter growl.

“In about two hours,” Carnell told him.

“And the Federation?”

“Approximately two hours after that.”

“Hmm,” Blake said, rubbing his chin with one hand. “That doesn’t leave much time for an evacuation, but I think we can get all of my people and most of the equipment out if we head back now. Fortunately Deva has been preparing for this sort of eventuality for as long as I can remember.” He holstered his gun. “Come on, it’s-” He paused, the eyebrow above his good eye quirking with interest. “Well, I suppose you know, don’t you?”

“That way,” Carnell said, pointing back in the direction that he and Karl had come. “Probably about two hours away on foot, or ten minutes in the space-hopper you left concealed in the undergrowth.”

“Extraordinary,” Blake said. He shook his head and began walking. Branches crunched beneath his boots. “You know, I really thought I’d been careful, that I was keeping us safe, even from people like you. I think I’ve just been proved incredibly wrong.”

“Well - it happens to the best of us,” Carnell said. “And, I assure you, this is nothing to what would have happened if I _hadn’t_ turned up.”

“I believe you,” Blake told him with a slight chuckle. “And, if you don’t mind, I’d rather not think about that.”

“I’m not really your son, am I?” Karl said as the two of them followed Blake towards the place he’d hidden the space-hopper.  

“I don’t know,” Carnell said. “I find it unlikely, but not impossible. And I’m not willing to rule out the simply unlikely. I do, however, _consider_ you to be my son,” Karl squeezed his hand, and Carnell smiled down at him. “And we can ask Orac about the rest once he turns up.”

*

“No. Of course not. Absolutely impossible,” Orac said.

“Oh well,” Carnell said, not overly disappointed. Blood was not, after all, _that_ important. “I suppose that would have been too neat. Why did you pick him then, if you don’t mind me asking? I take it that he could have been practically anyone. I’ve already established that you set me up simply because you were bored. It’s the kind of thing I’d have done.”

Up until this afternoon, he’d still been intending to shout at Orac and possibly throw it from somewhere very high onto somewhere hard or pointy. By the time he’d actually been left alone with the computer, though, he'd discovered he was too exhausted to be angry.

Even with everything planned out, Blake had still managed to almost ruin his reunion with Avon by attempting to go off-script at the crucial moment. Carnell had warned him away from the phrase _‘I set all this up’,_ but he hadn’t realised he would have to also mention that _‘Well, you certainly took your time finding me’_ would have similarly inflammatory results, given Avon’s history.

Blake had got as far as ‘ _Well, you certainly-’_ and then Carnell had tackled him to the floor, something that had taken everyone including Avon by surprise. Nobody had been shot, and Blake had managed to convince Avon and Vila that he was the real Blake, at which point Avon had begun shouting at him. Which, considering the alternative (only one letter different but considerably messier), was more than acceptable, if slightly wearing after the third hour.

It still wasn’t clear to Carnell what would have happened if he hadn’t done this and Blake had died by Avon’s hand, but he suspected it would have been less pleasant than the well-organised evacuation that had followed. In the moment, he hadn’t thought about it at all. The only thing that had gone through his mind was that if _he_ was seen as being in any way to blame for Blake’s murder then something terrible might happen to Karl.

“As it happens, I selected Karl quite carefully,” Orac said, starting Carnell out of his reflections. “He had to be of reasonable intelligence, or else you would never have believed he could beat you. I searched the records of those planets within seven day’s travel - any further away and you would have had the time to think about what you were doing and how unlikely it was that an eight-year-old would be able to beat you. Then for children without obviously familial ties. I narrowed down the selection by predicting which of those children was most likely to die without your intervention, and finally selected Karl because of the similarity between your names.”

Carnell smiled and sipped his tea. “I had thought that was simply an amusing irony.”

“Of course it was amusing,” Orac said irritably. “I thought of it.” Carnell’s smile widened into a grin.

“Nik! Nik!” Karl shouted from somewhere out in the the corridor. The door slid open, and Carnell’s adopted son skidded into the room. “Guess what? I beat Vila at chess,” he explained before Carnell had had time to speak, “ _three times._ It was easy. He thought it was funny at first, but now I think he’s annoyed and he doesn’t want to play any more.”

“Well done,” Carnell said, with a beam of paternal pride.

“Vila is quite a good player,” Orac said, unprompted, “so the achievement is not insignificant.”

Carnell flicked his eyes sideways towards the plastic box in amusement. Perhaps Orac too felt some satisfaction in the way Karl had turned out. He still wasn’t sure how the computer thought, how emotional it could get, but the idea wasn’t inconceivable.

“Blake is better, though,” he remarked. “Though I expect it will be difficult to convince him he should spend time on something so trivial. But then that _is_ part of the fun.”

“I predict,” Orac said, “that you can convince him within forty minutes, Karl.”

“And I think you can do it in thirty,” Carnell said. He winked, and Karl grinned, and Carnell pushed him towards the door. “Go and prove me right.” The door open and shut behind him.

“You’re wrong,” Orac said.

Carnell smiled, swirled his tea around in its cup, and drained it. “Well,” he said, “we’ll see about that, won’t we?”

 


End file.
